Analysis of a location based application

For my analysis, I looked into one of the most popular LB-service in Estonia: ZEN Pling. It is a location based social network, meaning its main functions are similar to typical social network functionalities (interest-realted inner-communities, communication, sharing of the self-avatar etc), but a new sphere of information has been introduced to the users - the location.

This means, that the the users interaction will also have locational information (where the message was produced). Additionally one can monitor where specific persons are and also be informed in real time of the feeds interested of.

Although the service itself is quite familiar for now in the internet, Pling was one of the first if not The first LB-service in Estonia. The more important fact is that its user-base has been the largest LBS-using social network´s in Estonia.

The application (rather service) itself is quite simplistic - it uses mobile (GSM) positioning and is usable with many mobile-based web browsers and desktop browsers. The dataflow uses 3G communication channels (or 2G where the former is not applicalble).

Because of the simplisity I believe the service went on to be such a widely used service. One only needs to create the user account (registration processes are rather easy) to start using the service. This simplisity ofcourse makes however impossible to create embed or attached services based on Pling, which is why the service has been solely dying (iOS and Android apps based on GMaps are overtaking). Also the discussions of privacy have gotten more "louder" in Estonia, often making young people rethink the use of such services.

For the service to survive in the hardening competition the platform should be more open - for example the ability to create company page; or applications custom made by the users etc.

At the same time I understand that since the portal is owned by Elisa AS who is a mayor telecommunications operator, it would be too optimistic to expect it to develop this platform according to the open source community understandings.